Environmental pollution has now become the talk of the world. It is very important to keep in mind that more than half of the world’s population now lives in an urban area. It is assumed that by 2030, 60% of the world’s population will be living in towns and cities, rising to 70% by 2050.1
As skin is the first line of defence when it comes to air pollution contact, we should be aware of the harmful effects of pollution on skin in general. Pollution, in fact, is not a problem limited to China or India only, it is almost common, for example, in London, Paris, New York and Milan as well. As urbanisation is the main cause of environmental pollution, it could be speculated that most of the people in the world are going to face higher levels of such pollution than ever before, and it will be very difficult for us to escape from that.
It needs to be taken under consideration that the sole use of a face-mask is not safe enough to protect skin from the detrimental effect of environmental pollution. Although pollution-induced skin ageing is thought to share the similar regulatory pathways involved in photo-ageing, it is still important to think that, compared to photo-ageing which occurs at day time and outdoors,pollutant-induced ageing could be more severe because it occurs at any time (day or night) and any place (indoor or outdoor). However, among the pollutants, tobacco smoke and particulate matter (PM2.5) are presumed to be the major players responsible for the cause of skin inflammation, pigmentation, and wrinkles as evident from various sporadic clinical and epidemiological studies. We at Ichimaru Pharcos have developed a unique plantbased natural ingredient, S. baicalensis (ougon extract, trade name: Ougon Liquid B), which could provide consumers with a better solution to suppress the harmful effects of those two prominent pollutants on human skin cells.
Air pollution and its mechanism of action
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